Alternate Worlds: Shorts
by HemingwayisBOSS
Summary: Title says it all. Basically, a collection of all the stuff I couldn't cram into the main story itself provided in a completely unchronological order. I advise all fans of AW to check it out. Rating will be adjusted if I decide to go dark and suggestive here as well.
1. In memory of axebro

Tatsumi halted as he saw a crowd gathered around the dragon pen – not exactly a common sight, considering Esdeath's damn pet was prone to gobbling up anyone foolish enough to stray close enough. Daidara was among them, towering over everyone else. He seemed to be having fun.

"S'cuse me," Tatsumi said as he shoved his through the crowd. His fellow beast heard him coming, grinning from ear to ear when he turned to look at his younger companion.

"Excellent timing, Tatsumi! The show is just about to begin."

Tatsumi leaned past the larger man to look into the pen. A handful of soldiers, strongly intoxicated judging by the unsteadiness of their steps, was making their way toward Esdeath's dragon. Even lying down in its sleep, the monster was still like a small hill.

"The fuck are they doing?" Tatsumi demanded.

"It's the oldest hazing ritual of this legion," Daidara explained, so eager he was hanging over the fence. "Touching the scales of Esdeath-sama's dragon after having downed exactly six shots. Wanna bet over how many of them're going to get eaten?"

Tatsumi looked at him in disbelief.

"What? C'mon man, that beast sleeps like a rock. It's been weeks since anyone got pegged."

Just then, one of the shit-faced soldiers had made their way to the finish line. Tatsumi cringed as the guy pressed a gloved hand against a plate-sized shell, but nothing happened. The giant slept on.

"See?" Daidara grunted, his voice suggesting he might've taken one shot too many himself. "It's all good … though it kinda sucks. I bet on at least one of them biting the big one… or maybe it should be getting _bitten_ by the big one. Get it? HA!"

Maybe it would've been all good, if one of the soldiers had not done something so unexplainably stupid that Tatsumi would always regret not getting the chance to ask him just what the fuck was going through his mind when he walked straight up to the dragon's head and put his arm inside its ear.

"Holy crap," Daidara shouted. "Someone buy that guy a cigar!"

The dragon's eyes flew open, glowing like cinders in the dark.

"Fucking hell," Tatsumi muttered as he jumped over the fence.

"Tatsumi!?" he heard Daidara yell behind him. "No, don't do that, man! I need the money! Bros before morals!"

The cold was purged from his skin as Hermes enveloped him. His control of it was still less than optimal, but it would have to do for now. The snow flew into the air like mist as he shoot forward.

Too late. Quick as a viper, the dragon's head dipped down. A pair of jaws strong enough to crush stone closed around the drunken fool severing all four limbs from his body.

"Oh, thank god," Daidara howled, and Tatsumi imagined him dragging a hand across a sweaty forehead.

Tatsumi turned ninety degrees, focusing his attention on the remaining four soldiers in the pen. Three looked like they were about to make it out, but the one who had touched the scale had fallen on his back, and now the dragon had noticed him. It lifted its hind leg, its intention no mystery.

Tatsumi jumped, launching himself into the side of its head. It wasn't nearly enough to render it unconscious, but certainly adequate to knock the beast off balance. The ground shook as the dragon stumbled to the side. Unfortunately, to accomplish this, Tatsumi had killed all his momentum. If not for the armor, he would have broken his shoulder when he hit the ground.

 _Crap,_ he thought as Hermes evaporated.

At once, one of the beast's red eye was on him. It pulled its head back, ready to strike.

"AAAAAAAHHHH!"

The dragon's head dipped down again, but a moment before Tatsumi was turned lunch, the flat side of Belvaac came crashing into its side. The dragon reared back, flapping batwings kicking up a ton of snow. Tatsumi had to put his hand up to keep the icy particles from blinding him completely.

"BWAHAHA!" Daidara roared as he spun the teigu axe in his hand. "See that, Tatsumi? That's how you tame a-"

The axe slipped from his grip, sailing through the air for a couple seconds before landing in the snow half a dozen meters away.

"Oh crap," Daidara burped. "Drank too much."

The dragon's tail whipped around, smacking the big man like a fly. He flailed with his arms and legs as he flew through the air, until he landed a good distance away, saved from a broken neck by the snow.

The dragon lifted its front paw. Tatsumi threw himself to the side. A claw as large as his arm missed him by a couple centimeters as he stumbled to his knees. The monster opened its mouth, thick spit hanging from sharp, yellowed teeth.

It lunged for him, jaws apart, and Tatsumi put his hand up. No. No way it could end like this. He hadn't done anything for the village yet.

Two giant spikes of ice erupted from the ground, forming a massive X that stopped the dragon short, pushing it back on its hand legs. It roared, but the booming sound shrunk to a whimper as a certain woman image was reflected on its irises. Tatsumi turned his head. Esdeath was standing right behind him, staring at her overgrown pet with eyes that promised suffering. The dragon crawled back, giant tail between giant legs, before sinking down on its stomach.

Esdeath looked down at him. "Just what the hell do you think you're doing?"

Tatsumi frowned. "How about saving your drunken, moron underlings?"

Esdeath's gaze fell on the two pair of limbs busy coloring the snow red a dozen meter away.

"So they've starting doing it again, huh?" she sighed. "And here I thought I'd made myself abundantly clear the last time. Who's idea was it?"

Just then, a clearly dizzy Daidara popped his head out of the snowdrift that had caught him, a big lump of white on his head.

"Yup, that's what I thought." Esdeath marched over to her giddy subordinate, Tatsumi right behind her. When Daidara saw them coming, he tore himself free with newly discovered speed and threw himself down in front of his master.

"I'M SORRY, ESDEATH-SAMA!"

She put a heeled boot on his head. During the time Tatsumi had spent around the general, he'd noticed she did this a lot, and she even seemed to have developed different ways of doing it. If the underside of her boot just barely touched your forehead, you could expect a harsh reprimand. If her heel was digging into your skin to the point of drawing blood, there was going to be hell to pay. The way she was doing it now, Tatsumi did not envy the large man. Not at all.

"Explain yourself," she said coldly.

"The temptation got to me," Daidara exclaimed. "I'm ready to face the consequences!"

"Good," Esdeath said, her trademark sadistic grin slowly spreading across her face. "I look forward to see how long you'll last this time."

It was at that point Tatsumi decided it was time to go. He got two steps away before her hand closed around his collar.

"Where do you think _you're_ going?" The breath against his neck was freezing, even in this climate.

He paled. "I-I didn't do anything!"

Esdeath turned him around and pulled him closer. "Now, now, Tatsumi, I can see that you had a rough fall. I'll need to get a look at you in private to ensure everything is as it should be. A _veeeeeery_ good look."

"Er… shouldn't one of the army physicians do that?" he tried, already knowing he wasn't digging his way out of this one. He had managed to ward off all her attempts to get him naked in front of her again for a full month now, and her patience had to be running quite thin.

She placed her hand on the small of his back and pulled him so close he could've counted her eyelashes.

"This is your health we're talking about, Tatsumi. I'm not of a mind to entrust it to anyone else. Let's go."

As she began dragging him towards her tent, it dawned on him that this war over his chastity might be a loosing one.

XXXXX

Days later, he walked up to hole in the ground, not unlike the one where those damn deserters had been held. Daidara sat huddled together at the bottom, his teeth chattering with the frequency of a machine gun. Unsurprising, considering he had been wearing a single layer of thin clothing at sub-zero temperatures for nearly seventy-two hours now.

"Hey," Tatsumi said.

Daidara looked up. "H-hey th-here m-man… h-ho-ow's i-it g-going?"

"I'm fine." He scratched the back of his head. "Hey… uhm… thanks for the help back there. I would probably be dragon food now if you hadn't stepped in."

"N-no p-prob-blem, m-man," Daidara stuttered, his whole body shaking to generate enough warmth. "U-us b-beasts got-ta s-stick tog-gether…"

Tatsumi looked up at the sky for a moment. "Yeah." He sighed. "You want me to go get you some food? I'm sure Esdeath won't notice."

"N-no! A m-man d-does n-not pus-sy o-out of a-any c-challenge! I g-gotta b-beat m-m-my r-record."

"Which is?"

"A w-week m-man. I-If I d-don't i-improve, E-Esdeath-s-sama w-will be d-d-disappointed…"

"That's pretty horrible."

"D-Doesn't m-matter, g-got p-paid!" The big man held up a heavy pouch which Tatsumi guessed contained his winnings.

Daidara grinned, and for a moment, he looked almost normal. Like the kind of guy you'd have a drink and a laugh with. "W-When w-we get t-to the c-capital, I-I'm t-taking y-you o-out for a-a beer, m-man. I-I know o-of a p-place where t-they sell s-shit t-that will g-get you b-beyond w-wrecked … n-no w-weaseling o-out…"

Sitting down on the edge, Tatsumi couldn't help a wry smile. "Fine, fine. It's a promise."


	2. A town called Hillberry

Bye the time Tatsumi noticed Bols was gone, they had already pretty much set up camp. Kind of hard to miss the one hulking and scarred individual in a retinue where most didn't measure more than five foot nine. He glanced around and saw Seryu feeding the mutant mutt a live rabbit (a sight that would appear in his dreams that night, no doubt), Wave helping Kurome with the last finishes of her tent (since when had those two started hanging around each other constantly?), Esdeath and Run huddled over a map (no doubt revising their travel route after this morning's little "hurdle"), but zero Bols. The big man's teigu rested in front of the tent he'd erected in record time, filling Tatsumi's chest with a unease. After Esdeath and Kurome (and himself he supposed), he was the most wanted of their members, and by far the most recognizable. If anyone rebel sympathizer should catch sight of him…

"Did any of you see Bols leaving?" he asked, approaching Wave and Kurome.

"Nope," Kurome said, not even bothering to look up from the bolt between her fingers. At least being ignored was a step up from the constant murderous glances she'd been sending him constantly before.

"Now that you mentioned it, no," Wave said as he surveyed their surroundings. "Maybe he went to gather some firewood?"

Tatsumi pointed out two neat piles already present in front of Bols' tent, one larger with hardwood, and a much smaller for the softwood.

"Man, that guy makes me feel like such a toadsloth," Wave grinned, scratching the back of his head. "Guess I've been away from the sea for too long. If you're finished yourself, why don't you go have a look and see that he hasn't wandered too far?"

Tatsumi nodded, heading over to Bols' little corner of their camp. His tracks were easy enough to pick up on account of his weight and the softness of the earth. Before long he'd identified the freshest ones and followed them downhill, where they'd left the horses to graze while there was still light. He paused when he saw that Bols' great stallion was missing.

 _The fuck? Where is he going that he needs a mount?_

After brief consideration, he whistled for his own. She came to him at once, a bronze mare with a white spot on her forehead. Watching her step so lightly it seemed she were floating an inch of the ground, he did not doubt this horse was worth just as much as every furry filly belonging to his village combined, if not more. As he put a hand on the soft muzzle, he found himself hoping Esdeath would let him keep her once they returned to the Capital.

He put one foot in the stirrup and swung himself up. He could've simply used Hermes, but after the widening of the crack as a result of the showdown in front of Bols' house he'd rather not use it too much for menial tasks such as travel. Spurring his mount onwards, he followed the Bols' tracks with one hand on the bridle and the other on his thigh. For a while he feared Bols had steered onto the dirt road they'd followed the last day and a half, and thus cloak himself among a thousand other hoofprints, but thankfully the tracks turned before hitting it, veering away onto one of the many dry fields that littered this arid region of the empire.

Bols wasn't heading back the way they'd come exactly, but it wasn't far off, leading Tatsumi to believe this business had something to do with the bandits they'd left shredded and bloodied by the wayside, but again he was mistaken. Suddenly, Bols had turned sharply once again, heading down a dried river that had not seen water for years by the look of it. The gravel and sand made the tracks stand out so blatantly that even the world's worst tracker would've have little trouble, leading Tatsumi to gently edge the mare into a trot.

There was nothing out here to hunt, nor any wood to gather even if the big man hadn't already taken care of it. If they had gotten themselves any pursuers, this felt like the last direction they'd be coming from, and besides, Bols had left unarmed. What the flying fuck did he expect to find out here?

The first sign didn't linger. Pulling the reins back, Tatsumi halted to look at the object in his path. The sun had turned the bone yellow and the cranium had been smashed in with great force, but lying slightly tilted on the ground in front of him was most certainly a human skull.

A skull that had belonged to a child, the size considered.

He stared at it for a while, then looked ahead. He could see Bols's stallion in the distance. It'd been hitched to a dead tree that looked to have once been dipping its roots in the river water. A minute later and he'd tethered his mare beside it. A stony path led up a gentle hill where Tatsumi imagined grass had flourished before the river decided to ditch this place. At the top stood a slanted and wooden sign with the words: "Hillberry" carved onto it in rough letters, but the one thing growing around it was weed. The berries had left with the river it seemed.

"Fucking hell," Tatsumi whispered.

The settlement of Hillberry was gone. Besides the blackened, crumbling and skeletal remains of former buildings upon a scorched earth and the sign he has just passed, nothing would suggest that people had ever lived here. Nothing would grow in this place again, no matter how much time passed. No ordinary fire had wrought this.

 _Teigu._

Slowly, he made his way downhill, passing a few trees that looked like black stone, leafless, dry and dead. A ruined cart lay halfway overturned, with the remnants of what had been a mule still strapped in front of it. In its own haste to escape the flames, it had trapped itself by running one of the wheels over a stone. It could not have been a quick death. Then he was among the houses, which was to say a lake of debris and the occasional wall that had stubbornly refused to give it up to the fire.

A loud _snap_ caught his attention and he looked down. He had stepped on a lone collarbone, breaking it in half. Lifting his foot revealed no other bones. Wind had separated it from the rest, and now it lay alone and yellowed, finally broken. It was not the worst thing he'd seen, far from it … and yet, as he looked at it, he felt a sudden sickness enter his stomach, and he had to look away.

He found Bols sitting on top of some rubble with his arms on his knees, face to the ground. The big man did not lift his head as Tatsumi approached, even though he must have heard him loud and clear. His hands were dirty. Had he been rummaging through the ashes or something?

"Bols."

He made no attempt to make his voice sound soft or comforting. He simply addressed his comrade as he otherwise would've. When Bols didn't answer, he stepped closer and tapped him on the head.

"Bols, what are you doing out here on your own?"

Bols said nothing.

"You know we're not supposed to run off on our own. Esdeath will be pissed."

"I know," came the answer, voice quiet. He looked up, and for the first time, Tatsumi was grateful for the mask. He had no desire to see what was going on in his friends face. He motioned at their surroundings.

"Did you do this?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

Bols just nodded. Tatsumi waited, allowing the man to collect his thoughts a bit.

"It was one of my first assignments as part of the incineration squad," Bols said after a lasting pause. "We just happened to be in the area when it was discovered this place was rife with rebel sympathizers, or at least, that's what we were told. Most of the others had been in the squad for far longer than me and already had a routine worked out. We rode into the village and gathered the residents in the town square." He pointed at ruined well a few meters ahead. "There. I didn't think much of come of it. I just thought we were gonna wave our weapons around, maybe beat up a few of the men until they talked. Looking back, I don't understand how I could've been so naïve, considering how I grew up."

The masked man wasn't looking at Tatsumi anymore. The eyes behind the mask were transfixed on something behind him, and Tatsumi did not doubt past events were playing out in front of them with merciless clarity.

"There were no questions asked, no attempt at separating the guilty from the rest. The commander gave the order and we raised our weapons. I did it too, just on instinct. There must have been a hundred or more people in front of us… over a dozen families, children, adults and even babes. I… there was this girl standing at the very front, maybe eight or nine years old. She had a … yellow dress I think… and a ribbon in her hair. I remember her because she was just in my sights, and suddenly I found myself wondering about Rubicante's former owner, the torturer and executioner from the prison. Had he been faced with a moment just like it? And had that moment turned him into the cruel and vicious man I knew?"

Tatsumi kept his silence, letting Bols move forward in his own pace. He supposed he know knew what why the man had dirtied his hands, what he'd been looking for.

"It must have taken at least a little while, but in my mind it happens in an instance. The people barely have the time to reach for each other. Next thing, everything is burning to the ground, and the few who escaped the flames we just rode down, before gathering on that hill there to watch the spectacle. The others were laughing, joking… cheering even. Just one more day on the job. I… I wanted to go back – grab a bucket and run down to the river… _something…_ but it was like one of those dreams where everything is mud, and I just stood there and watched. It still hadn't died down by the time the others got bored, so we turned our horses and left. And until that moment, all I'd been doing was watching."

They remained in silence for a while, until a light breeze rolled in over the hill, tossing a handful of ash in the air as it went. It looked almost like snow, and for a moment, it reminded Tatsumi of a different wasteland.

"I'm not going to say that it's okay, because what you did was wrong, if not horrible," Tatsumi said. "But … and this might sound fake and pretentious, but even so, please hear me out."

Bols looked at him, and even through the mask, Tatsumi could see the agony in his face.

"I understand how you feel."

"How could you," Bols said, and for the first time since they'd met, Tatsumi thought he could hear a trace of anger in his guttural voice. "Don't you see? How could I have looked my own daughter in the face all this time when I… knowing that I… what I've done…"

His voice died out, throttled between a thickening throat. Bols buried his face in his hands, but could not hide the shaking of his shoulders. Looking down at him, Tatsumi was suddenly overcome with an overwhelming feeling of closeness, an intimacy he had only ever felt with three people before this, and perhaps never to this extent. Absurd as it might have sounded, he wanted to put his arms around Bols' thick neck and start crying himself. He did not, however, opting instead to take a seat beside the big man until Bols had shed every tear he had.

"I'm from a village up north, not at all different from this…" he began. The rest of the story followed smoothly, much more so than when he'd told Run. Bols didn't interject once, but Tatsumi never doubted he had the big man's undivided attention. When he was finished, they once again shared a long silence.

"What a mess we've made," Bols finally said, and Tatsumi wondered if he was referring to the two of them specifically or people in general. "I'm sorry, Tatsumi. I've been feeling sorry for myself all this time while you…"

Tatsumi nudged him with his elbow. "Quit the bullshit. I'm not different from you. We're both here because we put ourselves and ours in front of others. We're the same, and it's time we took responsibility for it. Nothing we'll ever do can change what happened, and it'll continue to define us, as much as we might resent it. All we can do is choose _how_ it'll define us." He put his hand down on the ground and then on his friend's arm. When he pulled it away, a smudge of a grey handprint remained. "And we'll do it by wearing the ashes, owning it, with a vow to do better next time."

"You sound like an old man," Bols said, sounding almost coy.

"I sure feel like one right now. C'mon man, let's get back. There's nothing here anyway."

 **XXXXX**

Esdeath waited on top of the hill, arms crossed, beside a sign whose rough letters could no longer be made out in the fading light. Considering her tracking skills were far superior to his, Tatsumi supposed he shouldn't be surprised to see her.

"Well, someone's been taking liberties," she said dryly as she uncrossed her arms. "What part of _undercover_ do you two idiots suppose includes lollygagging around where any random traveler could have seen you?"

"The fault here is entirely mine," Bols said. "Tatsumi only came to make sure I was alright."

Esdeath let her gaze pass over the devastation behind them, and Tatsumi did not doubt for a moment she had already put two and two together. When her eyes came to rest on Bols though, there were neither contempt, nor sympathy in them.

"Pull a stunt like this again, and you'll be riding naked all the way back to the capital once our business in Kyoroch is concluded. Understood?"

Bols simply nodded. Nothing about him indicated how Tatsumi's tale might've impacted his view of Esdeath. Time would tell, he supposed.

"Let's go," Esdeath said, turning around. "You can bet your asses dinner will be the responsibility of you two tonight, and may the gods have mercy if it tastes anything less than exquisite."


End file.
